Great Panic of 2008

New York Times' reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin's excerpt microscopically examines the actions of some key regulatory and Wall Street players, in this case during the period immediately after Lehman failed.

One view of "normal" has come out of the crisis stronger than ever: that "normal" doesn't exist at all, that the belief in market equilibrium has been effectively undermined.

The real lesson of the Lehman meltdown and failure may turn out to be that it was not a deep enough shock to change a political and economic system that seems to require liquidity-driven growth.